It's possible that the Royals are playing to win games against teams that really don't care about playing to win. It's possible that young players trying to make the team and make an impression are performing so well as a group that the manager doesn't have to play to win to generate excitement where none would otherwise exist in the KC fanbase.

If the Royals get off to a quick start, as some teams do after winning a lot of games in the spring, people will say the Grapefruit League performance was meaningful. If the Royals struggle in April, as some teams do after winning a lot of spring exhibition games, some people will point to the exhibition season as meaningless. Some Royals fans will complain that they shouldn't have wasted all their wins in the exhibition seaon that didn't count.